Cooperating with Grace
I ran across the phrase “It’s how you cooperate with Grace” in a book entitled “The Orchards of Perseverance”. It was spoken by a monk, Brother Adam. As we all know we receive a personal invitation from Christ to enter Heaven. God also extends to us the grace to respond to that invitation. But it is not automatic. Most of us struggle from time to time with responding to that invitation. It really isn’t that much different from how we consider responding to invitations that we receive to parties or events in life. We start with: Am I Free? Which basically means is there anything that I might consider more important? What shall I wear? Which might indicate that I am looking for ways to cover up the real me and present not who I am but who I would like to be? “Do I have to bring a gift?” Or in other words to do I have to share some of my money or possessions.
Luckily for us, when God invites us, that grace that he also sends can help us respond to the invitation, eventually no questions asked. I have come to realize that God’s grace is there for me 24/7 every day of my life. The action then becomes how I cooperate with that grace”. For the invitation, I respond. For the Grace, I accept. Seems simple. Carrying on with yet another analogy. God’s grace can be accepted in the spirit of a “mother of the bride” and the invitation being one to a wedding. The mother of the bride freely accepts that grace and cooperates with that grace to devote her time and energies to doing the things that will insure that invitation will lead her and the rest of us to that festive life with Christ. Another great dimension of the wedding analogy is that it is an invitation is to a group from God not an individual. We can respond individually but in doing so we help the group to response.
One way to look at grace is as a combination of energy and conviction. Using that interpretation can surely be seen in our mother of the bride analogy.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
AN END TABLE, A WHITE SHIRT, A PAIR OF GYM SHORTS AND A CAN OF CORN
November 11, 2011
By Ken Bresnan, Parish Outreach Liaison
When a blogger starts with a title like that, one would wonder where he is going to go. Let’s find out.
Yesterday I was in a conversation with one of my coworkers and we were talking about the theme for this year’s annual No Room at the Inn events, “Together, we can help lift people out of poverty with dignity”.
Needless to say that sent my mind to wandering. Many of my interactions with the poor, similar to most people, are at least one step removed from personal contact with a person in need. We get involved with collections and donations. It has dawned on me that through those collections, we can truly help to raise people up with dignity.
Let me explain how I look at this. I have an old end table in my basement that my wife Rita and I don’t need. I could take it to one of our warehouses for use by one of our programs. But the more I look at it, I realize that I would be using this as a means for getting rid of a piece of junk more than an act of dignified charity. We have had that table for 40 years and it has not survived the raising of four children well. It is so beat up that I don’t even have it in the basement rec room but hidden in a storage area.
If I think that it would be ok for a person in poverty, am I really treating them with dignity? As Bishop Pates stressed in his sermon on centennial Sunday, “Each is entitled to be accorded the dignity consistent with his identity.” The danger here is that through my donations and actions I could be considering the person in need as a second class citizen. I believe that what Christ wants is for us to consider treating people with dignity, the exact same dignity that I want to be treated with. In summary, I wouldn’t want to be given that end table.
I had a new white dress shirt given to me last Christmas. Unfortunately the relative that sent it to me did not account for my ever increasing size. I remember actually having the thought, “It’s too good to give to the poor”. Again, an attitude that does not treat people with dignity.
Recently my wife insisted that I get a new pair of gym shorts for my workouts. The 1960ish pair that I had been wearing seemed to me to still be in good shape. I had been wearing them for a few decades and they held up pretty good. Would I want to receive a pair of gym shorts that someone wore for twenty years? No, it was beneath my dignity.
And finally I will mention a can of corn. My wife and I make a habit of on every weekly shopping trip we buy three extra canned goods for the monthly collection at our church. When I get canned corn for myself, I go with DelMonte. When I am shopping for those three cans, I see myself reaching for the generic brand. As you can see, having thoughts like this and some of the others that I mentioned can lead me down a path of looking at people in poverty as a different group, a sub class so to say.
Not a good way to think. In each of our actions we have to think of the end user as a person with same dignity that God has given each of us. This really wasn’t about an end table, a white shirt, a pair of gym shorts or a can of corn but about treating all people with dignity.
November 11, 2011
By Ken Bresnan, Parish Outreach Liaison
When a blogger starts with a title like that, one would wonder where he is going to go. Let’s find out.
Yesterday I was in a conversation with one of my coworkers and we were talking about the theme for this year’s annual No Room at the Inn events, “Together, we can help lift people out of poverty with dignity”.
Needless to say that sent my mind to wandering. Many of my interactions with the poor, similar to most people, are at least one step removed from personal contact with a person in need. We get involved with collections and donations. It has dawned on me that through those collections, we can truly help to raise people up with dignity.
Let me explain how I look at this. I have an old end table in my basement that my wife Rita and I don’t need. I could take it to one of our warehouses for use by one of our programs. But the more I look at it, I realize that I would be using this as a means for getting rid of a piece of junk more than an act of dignified charity. We have had that table for 40 years and it has not survived the raising of four children well. It is so beat up that I don’t even have it in the basement rec room but hidden in a storage area.
If I think that it would be ok for a person in poverty, am I really treating them with dignity? As Bishop Pates stressed in his sermon on centennial Sunday, “Each is entitled to be accorded the dignity consistent with his identity.” The danger here is that through my donations and actions I could be considering the person in need as a second class citizen. I believe that what Christ wants is for us to consider treating people with dignity, the exact same dignity that I want to be treated with. In summary, I wouldn’t want to be given that end table.
I had a new white dress shirt given to me last Christmas. Unfortunately the relative that sent it to me did not account for my ever increasing size. I remember actually having the thought, “It’s too good to give to the poor”. Again, an attitude that does not treat people with dignity.
Recently my wife insisted that I get a new pair of gym shorts for my workouts. The 1960ish pair that I had been wearing seemed to me to still be in good shape. I had been wearing them for a few decades and they held up pretty good. Would I want to receive a pair of gym shorts that someone wore for twenty years? No, it was beneath my dignity.
And finally I will mention a can of corn. My wife and I make a habit of on every weekly shopping trip we buy three extra canned goods for the monthly collection at our church. When I get canned corn for myself, I go with DelMonte. When I am shopping for those three cans, I see myself reaching for the generic brand. As you can see, having thoughts like this and some of the others that I mentioned can lead me down a path of looking at people in poverty as a different group, a sub class so to say.
Not a good way to think. In each of our actions we have to think of the end user as a person with same dignity that God has given each of us. This really wasn’t about an end table, a white shirt, a pair of gym shorts or a can of corn but about treating all people with dignity.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Warm Coats
By Ken Bresnan, Parish Outreach Liaison for Catholic Charities in Des Moines Iowa
Many of us are familiar with a "jeans day". That day where if you donate to a cause you can wear jeans to work or school. Last week I experienced my first "coat day". It was the day that winter coats were available for the first time this year at St. Mary Family Center, Catholic Charities' food pantry and free clothing closet. This is why we have been asking parishes, and in turn all of you, to donate your slightly used coats.
St. Mary Family Center opened at 10 a.m. and, as reported by the staff, they already had a line at that time. I was only there for half an hour, but WOW. There were never less than 50 people in the center and never less than seven different nationalities and as I listened I thought back to the New Testament where the Apostles spoke and people heard them in their native languages. That is what I saw. Warm coats, donated by good people, offered to strangers who need them-- that is definitely an act of charity and charity is that universal language which all understand.
What more can I tell you about the people that now will be wearing your coats? Well, the first thing I noticed is that many wore hats, ball caps, wool hats, seed corn hats, and sari scarves. I saw red, blue, black, white, purple and one orange hat. I saw clean and dirty hats. As with any crowd over 25, one person was wearing a Green Bay Packer hat. Once I was over seeing everyone’s head gear, I started to notice the individuals. They were polite, quiet and cooperative with the staff that was busy organizing lines and giving people time to pick which coat or coats were needed for their families.
Driving home I couldn't help but think of the oft mentioned coat of many colors for Joseph in Genesis. Sometimes I hear that referred to as a patch work coat. In a sense I saw that in reverse that morning. The people receiving coats were a patch work, a mosaic of God’s creation. And you all were there with them symbolically through your donated coats.
I can’t help but think that we as congregations in this instance have done good.
Many of us are familiar with a "jeans day". That day where if you donate to a cause you can wear jeans to work or school. Last week I experienced my first "coat day". It was the day that winter coats were available for the first time this year at St. Mary Family Center, Catholic Charities' food pantry and free clothing closet. This is why we have been asking parishes, and in turn all of you, to donate your slightly used coats.
St. Mary Family Center opened at 10 a.m. and, as reported by the staff, they already had a line at that time. I was only there for half an hour, but WOW. There were never less than 50 people in the center and never less than seven different nationalities and as I listened I thought back to the New Testament where the Apostles spoke and people heard them in their native languages. That is what I saw. Warm coats, donated by good people, offered to strangers who need them-- that is definitely an act of charity and charity is that universal language which all understand.
What more can I tell you about the people that now will be wearing your coats? Well, the first thing I noticed is that many wore hats, ball caps, wool hats, seed corn hats, and sari scarves. I saw red, blue, black, white, purple and one orange hat. I saw clean and dirty hats. As with any crowd over 25, one person was wearing a Green Bay Packer hat. Once I was over seeing everyone’s head gear, I started to notice the individuals. They were polite, quiet and cooperative with the staff that was busy organizing lines and giving people time to pick which coat or coats were needed for their families.
Driving home I couldn't help but think of the oft mentioned coat of many colors for Joseph in Genesis. Sometimes I hear that referred to as a patch work coat. In a sense I saw that in reverse that morning. The people receiving coats were a patch work, a mosaic of God’s creation. And you all were there with them symbolically through your donated coats.
I can’t help but think that we as congregations in this instance have done good.
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